FINDING 01
AMERICA ISN’T 50:50 IN POLITICAL ENERGY
Political preference can appear closely divided while the intensity of feeling underneath it tells a different story.
EXPLORE THE FINDING →
POLITICAL BRAND INSTITUTE | USA WAVE 1
The Brand Science Behind Politics
Polls measure direction. PBI measures the energy underneath it.
America can look almost evenly divided in political preference while being anything but evenly divided in the strength of feeling underneath it.
The Political Brand Institute measures not only which way Americans lean, but how strongly they feel, why they are moving and what the Democratic and Republican brands mean to them.
USA Wave 1 premieres 27 October 2026
11:11 am New York time
5,000 Americans. Two political brands. One new lens.
Independent research. No party. No candidate. No agenda.
BEYOND THE HEADLINE NUMBER
America can look 50:50 in direction without being 50:50 in energy.
Traditional polling is exceptionally good at telling us which way people are leaning.
PBI adds another lens: how strongly they feel about that choice.
Two people can express the same political preference while holding it with completely different levels of conviction. That difference matters when trying to understand political movement, engagement and the emotional landscape beneath the headline numbers.
PREFERENCE
Which way do you lean?
↓INTENSITY
How strongly do you feel?
↓POLITICAL BRAND ENERGY
How much energy sits behind that lean?
USA WAVE 1 | FIRST FINDINGS
Something interesting is happening underneath the polls.
Our first national study reveals patterns that aren’t always obvious in conventional political measures.
FINDING 02
DISAPPROVAL IS MORE ENERGISED
In Wave 1, negative political sentiment carries different intensity from positive sentiment. Preference alone doesn’t reveal that difference.
EXPLORE THE FINDING →FINDING 03
MEN ARE MOVING DIFFERENTLY
Our research finds important differences in the movement and intensity of political attitudes among men and women.
EXPLORE THE FINDING →FINDING 04
POLITICAL PARTIES HAVE PERSONALITIES
Americans don’t experience political parties simply as collections of policies. They attach human characteristics, emotions and expectations to them.
EXPLORE THE FINDING →
A POLITICAL BRAND INSTITUTE FILM
Beyond Polling: The Political Brands of America
USA Wave 1 Premiere
27 October 2026
11:11 am New York time
In this one-off flagship film, PBI founder Peter Drinkwater explores what 5,000 Americans told us about the Democratic and Republican brands: their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, drivers and the political energy sitting underneath conventional preference.
A NEW PBI MEASURE
Political Brand EnergyTM
Traditional polling measures preference. Political Brand EnergyTM measures the strength underneath that preference.
Someone can lean Democrat or Republican weakly or strongly.
Those people can look identical in a conventional headline number while representing very different levels of political energy.
Political Brand EnergyTM helps expose that difference.
050100
“If you only measure preference, you can miss whether that preference is soft or hard.”
THE BRAND SCIENCE BEHIND POLITICS
Political parties are brands.
People don’t experience political parties as policy documents. Over time, parties accumulate memories, associations, expectations, emotions and personalities. That’s what brands do.
01
A BRAND IS STORED VALUE
A commercial brand holds the accumulated value of future purchasing behaviour. A political brand holds accumulated value that can influence future political choice.
02
A BRAND HAS A PERSONALITY
A brand is more than a product, service or political party. People experience it as though it has human characteristics: strong or weak, caring or cold, modern or dated, trustworthy or untrustworthy.
03
A BRAND IS AN ENERGY
Brands can attract, repel or leave people indifferent. Political Brand EnergyTM seeks to quantify the strength of that attraction or rejection.
POLITICAL BRAND HEALTH MONITOR
5,000 Americans. One national study. A different lens.
5,000
Americans surveyed
USA
National Wave 1
INDEPENDENT
No political client
PBI examines political brands through five lenses
01
CHOICE
Consideration, preference and political movement.
02
RATIONAL DRIVERS
The issues and functional expectations influencing political choice.
03
PERSONALITY & EMOTION
The human characteristics and emotional associations attached to each political brand.
04
POLITICAL BRAND ENERGY
Not simply direction, but strength of feeling.
05
AUDIENCE MOVEMENT
How political attitudes differ across generations, gender, geography, media audiences and other groups.
We measure political brands. We don’t campaign for them.
NO PARTY.
NO CANDIDATE.
NO AGENDA.
PBI is an independent political brand research institute.
Our research may reveal uncomfortable findings for Democrats. It may reveal uncomfortable findings for Republicans. Frequently, it may reveal both.
That’s the point.
Our role is not to advocate for a political brand. It is to understand it.
BUILT TO BE INTERROGATED
Don’t just trust the headline. Examine the research.
Sample
n=5,000 USA
Fieldwork
September 2026
Method
Online research panel
Weighting
Demographic and geographic population characteristics
Political preference
Not used as a weighting target
Quality controls
Respondent-quality and data-integrity checks
Political preference and identification are research outcomes. PBI does not force the sample to conform to an assumed political distribution, because doing so could suppress movement the research is designed to observe.
PBI MEDIA INTELLIGENCE
Do you know the politics of your audience?
Different media audiences can inhabit very different political worlds.
PBI examines how media consumption relates to political preference, Political Brand EnergyTM, issues, personality perceptions and attitudes.
This creates a different way for publishers, advertisers, agencies, organisations and researchers to understand politically engaged audiences.
NEWS | PODCASTS | YOUTUBE | SOCIAL | PRINT & DIGITAL
USA WAVE 1
Go deeper than the headlines.
Wave 1 research access opens immediately following the premiere on 27 October 2026.
PBI USA REPORT
Full research report
US$11.11
The complete PBI USA Wave 1 report. For anyone who wants to go beyond the public findings and understand the full PBI story.
AVAILABLE AFTER THE PREMIERE ON 27 OCTOBER 2026
FOR THE POLITICALLY OBSESSED
PBI POLITICAL JUNKIE BUNDLE
USA Report + PBI Explorer
US$1,111
PBI USA Report + PBI Explorer. Built for political junkies, commentators, strategists and researchers who want to interrogate the research themselves.
AVAILABLE AFTER THE PREMIERE ON 27 OCTOBER 2026
PBI ENTERPRISE
USA Report + PBI Analyst
US$11,111
PBI USA Report + PBI Analyst. For organisations and institutions requiring professional access to interrogate the Wave 1 research at greater depth.
AVAILABLE AFTER THE PREMIERE ON 27 OCTOBER 2026
Be first into Wave 1.
Register and we’ll let you know when PBI USA Wave 1 research access opens following the premiere on 27 October 2026.
A different lens on politics.
The Political Brand Institute is an independent research institute applying brand science, behavioural research and political analysis to understand how people experience political parties.
PBI’s Political Brand Health Monitor tracks not simply who people prefer, but why, how strongly and how those relationships change over time.
POLITICAL BRAND INSTITUTE
The Brand Science Behind Politics
The polls tell us which way America leans.
We’re interested in the energy underneath it.
USA WAVE 1
Premieres 27 October 2026
11:11 am New York time
5,000 Americans. Two political brands. One new lens.
POLITICAL BRAND INSTITUTE
The Brand Science Behind Politics